Why I Killed My Sister
by FluffyChipmunk
Summary: A different interpretation of what the back cover summary says about Anna Fitzgerald. Sometimes, you understand all too well what your life is when your sister will always be the top priority.
1. Anna

Acting is an art, just like everything else. It's an art form that I've perfected. I do it exceptionally well. While Jesse has his fire, I have my facades. When alone, I love to try on different masks, but I make sure to be consistent with my family. Every time Sara looks at me, I act natural, lazily. Acting takes energy, and wasting it on Sara wouldn't affect her view of me. She's always too busy to properly notice me, so I never try too hard. Every time I talk to Kate, I make meaningless small talk about her current celebrity crush. I smile from my eyes, relax my shoulders, and slur my words just slightly enough so it sounds as if I'm not thinking about what I'm saying. I talk to Kate so often I've perfected the art of Anna to her. I never speak to Jesse voluntarily. I try to speak casually though keeping myself outwardly relaxed is harder around him. He's too much like me. The only difference is that I've acted my entire life while he simply stayed silent. Brian is easy though. I speak with just a little bit of snark entertains him. I've even acted on television. A film crew for some cancer society came to our house to show how Kate was like any sixteen year old.

"What do you wish most for your sister?"

The woman wore a bright red lipstick with a slight sheen along with a curl in her hair that looked anything but natural. She smiled like the Joker had sprayed her with his poison gas; the grin didn't go anywhere during the entire process.

"We always wish for her to get better, of course, but seeing Kate's classmates tiptoeing around her because of her illness is a little bit sad. She's just a normal kid, you know?" I answered. I didn't mention how being normal makes her boring and how her personality makes conversations with her feel vapid or how she's obsessed with her looks like every other sixteen year old girl.

"Yeah," Jesse added. He was fidgety during the interview. I always answered with what they wanted to hear, so he never had much to add.

"Cut!"

"That was great, kids," the interviewer said. "Just what we wanted to hear."

She asked more questions, all related to Kate, of course. I let Jesse answer one by himself, and they had to tape that part twice.

Kate was interviewed in her room. There was a perfect split between our sides of the room. Hers had posters of her favorite actors from her campy soap operas. The film people added more trinkets that a normal girl would have and that Kate would have if she had the time to be into all of the boy bands that seem to be all the rage right now. My side of the room was plain white with an obligatory framed photo on my nightstand.

I was swinging my feet on my side of the room. I was looking at Kate while half smiling. Kate would look at me for reassurance periodically, and I would give her a thumbs up of encouragement when she did.

After six hours of filming, they left.

"Did you have fun, Kate?" Sara asked. She was cleaning the kitchen counters after having made the film crew cookies. She had brought some to Kate during her interview. Kate gave me one of her cookies.

"Yeah," Kate said with a mouthful of crumbly cookies. The crumbs were falling onto the carpet, and I wanted to throw her a tissue, but that would be out of character for me. Besides, Sara would scold me for doing something like that to Kate.

"Do you want to go to Anna's hockey game today?"

"Not really. Jake is going to propose to Kelly tonight."

Because a tv show that you can VCR is incredibly important.

She glanced at me and gave an apologetic smile. I gave a wave and mouthed it's fine.

Following Kate's eye line, Sara noticed me for the first time.

"Anna, I'm going to stay with Kate. I'll have Jesse take you to the game."

This was the qualifying match for the statewide tournament. Hockey was my outlet for a while. Telling my parents about it had surprised them, and initially, they tried to convince me to quit. Eventually, they just had Jesse take me to the rink when I had things to do.

Our team won, but I couldn't go to the rest of the games. The next few matches took place in the city over, and Sara didn't let me go in case Kate relapsed. Our team lost with our goalie alternate.

Now, I've quit hockey because I don't have the time, or the energy. Jesse's the only person who has a semblance of free time. Everyone else is too tense. Kate's kidneys are failing, and I know I will be the one to donate an organ to Kate.

"Mrs. Fitzgerald, Kate's kidneys are failing."

The doctor explained how even though the cancer hadn't come back, Kate's body had gotten tired fighting it. It isn't uncommon for cancer patients' bodies to just give up, and their organs start failing. For Kate, it meant she had to go to the hospital twice a week for dialysis.

He also said that the only thing that could save her was a kidney transplant.

"Well, couldn't I donate it? You don't have to be a complete match for a kidney transplant, right?" Sara asked.

I looked at my feet with a light melancholic look on my face. I glanced at the Kate, who was sleeping while undergoing dialysis. I was sitting on her hospital bed with Sara next to me.

"Normally you don't need a complete HLA match, but Kate's body would probably reject it if it wasn't a complete match."

I knew what to say. I knew I needed to say that I could donate the kidney. I know I should say it. I knew Sara wants me to say it, introduce the idea, but I didn't.

"Anna," Sara said. "Would you be willing to donate a kidney?"

This was a pretend question. A demand masquerading as a choice.

"Mrs. Fitzgerald, the transplant is risky for Kate. Her body probably won't be able to handle it..." He trailed off as Kate stirred in her sleep.

"Mom?" Kate said while yawning.

Sara turned to face Kate from the chair she was sitting on.

"Yes, sweetie?"

I didn't face Kate. I knew that we weren't supposed to tell Kate about how her kidneys were going to fail much more quickly than they had at first predicted. It was just delaying the inevitable, but Anna listens to her mother. Though I don't think Kate ever forgets that she's dying.

"Anna!"

I wake up to a pillow in my face barely able to breathe, and Kate standing over me. I want to tell her to get back to her side of her room, but I smile at her instead while waving her away playfully.

I roll out of bed and hit the floor with a thump. It hurt, but Anna loves to be quirky to make her sister laugh. I sometimes wish that I was just myself, yet being Jesse isn't a flattering option.

"I'm gonna grab some food. You want something?" I ask. I bounce out of the room with as much energy as I could muster.

I bump into Sara on the stairway. I let myself trip and almost fall.

"Oh!" Sara goes to try and catch me when she saw me trip. "Sorry, sweetie. Oh," she just remembers something, "the kidney transplant is gonna be scheduled in two weeks."

She continues walking up the stairs, probably to tell Kate about the surgery.

Brian's at the firehouse, so no one should notice that I'm gone. I grab some of Sara's money that she leaves out for Jesse, put on a coat to fight the cold, and head for Campbell Alexander's attorney offices.

I make it twelve steps out of the door to realize it's way too cold to walk a quarter mile in Upper Darby. Especially considering that there aren't any crosswalks in the city, so I'd have to circle around the city twice to get to the right street.

I walk up to Jesse's bedroom above the garage. It's filled with trash and dirty laundry, and it gives me a shiver horror movies aim to emulate.

"Jesse!" I shout into the abyss, flicking the dim ceiling light on. I ignore my disgust, and sit on a beanbag chair with questionable stains on it.

Jesse emerges from the piles of filth. "What are you doing in my room?"

"I need you to drive me somewhere."

"Ask Mom."

"She'll ask where I'm going."

"Where are you going?"

To an attorney's office so I can help our sister commit suicide.

I don't answer. Rather, I hand him a slip of paper with the address on it. Well an address a block away from the actual office.

He gives the paper back without looking at it. I have to make him see the Anna he wants if I'm doing this.

"I'm serious, Anna."

Anna. I have to be Anna. What would she do? What would she say?

"I can't tell you," I say while biting my lip. Biting my lip is something Anna does if she's nervous. She also does it when she can't say something. He'll agree to it now; he always does.

"Fine, let's go," he relents. Grabbing his keys from the half open nightstand drawer, he opens the door and gestures for me to go out into the hallway with him.

I lug myself out of the chair. The fabric feels like it's trying to swallow me. I follow Jesse outside to his beat up car. It's technically only ten or so years old, but it looks three times older than that. It used to look a lot better.

Sliding into the passenger seat, I take in the scent of gasoline and bleach. It's disgusting, but we all have our quirks.

Jesse lights a cigarette while turning the key. The car rumbles, revealing its age if the outside hadn't already tipped you off. He rolls down a window, letting the smoke blow out as he drives through the city.

I slack my body, leaning into the ripped leather seat. I shudder to think of what this will do to my posture; then chase away that thought.

The cigarette smoke makes me want to bust out into a coughing fit. Even as it puffs outwards, the single whiffs I breathe in feel constricting to my lungs.

I roll down my window, letting the breeze blow through my hair, and the smoke away from me.

Upper Darby isn't big, but it's big enough for a downtown area where businesses love to exploit loopholes in tax laws.

"What's the address?"

"500 Jefferson Street."

"You want me to wait or what?"

"It'll take thirty minutes; you decide."

He turns onto Jefferson and parks in a restaurant's customer only parking lot. He snuffs out his cigarette with his palm.

I walk until I hit the office building. The door rings as I check which floor Campbell Alexander's attorney office is on.

The door is wide open. Peeking in, I see a receptionist is screaming on the phone. Her hair falls loose from her formerly perfect bun as she slams the phone down.

"I made an appointment."

I'm at the desk. The woman looks at me and checks the schedule laid out on her desk.

"On the phone you didn't sound quite as," she pauses for a moment, "young."

She taps a manicured nail on her desk. "We don't take juvenile cases as a rule." She gives an apologetic smile with her honeyed lips, "If you'd like, I could give you the names of some-"

I let go for a moment. I let go for one precious moment. "Really? Mr. Alexander has tried three cases all involving litigants under the age of eighteen in the past year." I count them on my fingers, "Smith v. Whately, Edmunds v. Womens and Infants Hospital, and Jerome v. the Diocese of Providence. Do you honestly think lying to me is benefiting Mr. Alexander in any way?"

I realize what I said and immediately retract my statement, "Pardon my last sentence; that was rude. I just mean to point out that Mr. Alexander has tried juvenile cases recently."

The receptionist laughs at my speech. I'm a child to her, to everyone.

"Well, you certainly have spunk. Go on to Mr. Alexander's office. He'll be right there."

His office is the door with a large sign hanging from it: Campbell Alexander, Attorney.

Opening the door, I see shelves and shelves of books. I run my fingers over the spines of some books and wonder how much money all of these hardcover books cost. There isn't a single paperback, and most of the hard covers had gold trimmed pages. I doubt that Alexander has read all, if any, of these books.

There aren't any photos of anything in the office, only a painting of a landscape based on somewhere that doesn't exist behind the desk.

The desk is made of polished mahogany. There aren't any knick-knacks on the desk, only a mug and a small cup of pens and other various stationery tools.

I like how impeccably clean the office is, but it does makes me feel like I'm at my house. It feels like I haven't traveled a mile away. While the ride here was refreshing, this place is suffocating.

The door clicks open revealing a person in a suit. Campbell Alexander, I assume.

With him is a German shepherd. It goes to the desk in front of Alexander, sitting beside the swivel chair. It has a vest with a red cross on it. He's a service dog yet his owner is very not blind.

He brushes past me, taking a seat and a sip of the drink in the mug. He doesn't lend me the respect to even look at me.

"I don't want any scout cookies," he says, pointing for me to leave. He's shuffling around papers in the drawers. "You get Brownie points for tenacity though." He smiles at his shitty joke.

"I'm not here to sell cookies." He's presumptuous in a condescending way. Though can you be presumptuous without being condescending?

He frowns, and yells, "What's this girl here for?" to the open door.

"I'm here to hire you," I say. I expect him to laugh, and he does.

"Sorry kid. I don't take juvenile-"

"Smith v. Whately, Edmunds v. Womens and Infants Hospital, and Jerome v. the Diocese of Providence." Will I ever meet an adult who won't blatantly lie to me?

"Those were special cases."

I see a glint of interest and that's all I need. I just need to convince him of my suit.

"How do you know I'm not a special case?"

He leans back in his chair, looking at the door I happened to be standing in front of. "Chances are, you're not."

"Why not take the chance? Won't hurt you either way."

"Alright. Pitch it then."

"I want medical emancipation from my parents, so I don't have to donate a kidney."

I could tell he was about to say something when I mentioned medical emancipation, but I kept talking. Now, he's stroking his hair.

"Nobody can just take an organ from you if you don't consent to it," he says.

Your consent doesn't matter when you're a kid.

"Really? When I was born, they took my umbilical cord blood to save my sister. Five years later, I donated lymphocytes to my sister Kate. Three times, actually. She has leukemia and I'm her donor. They took bone marrow next. She relapsed again, and I donated peripheral blood stem cells. Along with donating granulocytes whenever she got infections, I've donated at least seven parts of me without my explicit consent in any of it."

I've long lost count on how many times Kate has had an infection. She gets one every time she starts chemo.

"Did you tell your parents about not wanting to donate a kidney?" He pulls out a legal pad and pen.

"They'll say I'm being childish and won't listen to me." Sara will start treating me like a monster, Brian won't care. Brian doesn't care about anything. I assume he used to.

"They might listen to you if you mention this." He says it as he scribbles on the notepad.

"They ignore me unless Kate needs something."

Is that what Anna would say? I look down at the floor, letting my hair cover half my face. Something's missing from my words.

"I wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for her. I was made to save her." I say it slightly softer. This is something Anna would be just slightly bothered by, subconsciously. But she's an open book, so you'd know pretty quickly. "They went to specialists and everything to choose the correct embryo."

I can tell Campbell is thinking about how sad it is that I was conceived as a donor and for the explicit purpose to give to Kate. I don't care very much, myself.

I remember asking my parents about how I was made. I expected the sex talk that everyone kind of figured out by fourth grade, but I was greeted with a long explanation of how I was selected to be a perfect genetic match to Kate so I could donate my cord blood to her.

I think that's a better reason than why some of my classmates were born. There was one kid whose mother was obviously getting abused. The kid even told us that he was born so his mother wouldn't leave his father. The teacher gave him the number of an abuse center. Now he's in foster care.

The last thing Brian told me during the conversation irks me.

"But we love you just as much as we would if you weren't born that way," Brian had said.

I could smell a white lie even at nine years old. It wasn't reassuring the way they wanted it to be; I was just more convinced that acting should be my dream career because I'm already living it.

"What happens if you don't give the kidney?"

"Kate dies."

That's certain.

"And you're fine with that?"

He can't quite believe I'm willing to sentence my sister to die. Most people wouldn't. Family trumps all, no?

"Yes."

I sound robotic, like a sociopath. Kate asked me, but I would've stopped eventually. Been fed up with all of it.

"Why now? After so many years, why now?"

Anna wouldn't tell the truth. She would lie. Say how she's just fed up with it because she wouldn't want to acknowledge that her sister asked her to help commit suicide.

"It just never stops."

I don't like the taste of the lie on my tongue. It's bittersweet.

"I'm going to file a petition for you in family court: medical emancipation. Then there will be a hearing and a guardian ad litem appointed. That's-"

"Another adult telling me what to do." I know what a GAL is.

"It's a person trained to work with kids in family court. They decide what's in the child's best interest."

I can tell he didn't like me interrupting him. Anna doesn't have a temper, she's halfway to a doormat. I cloak myself in Anna. Mask my own thoughts with hers, but I find that seeing what Campbell wants is hard to figure out.

"Is there any way to not have a GAL appointed?" There isn't. No one considers a thirteen year old's thoughts seriously unless they're echoed by an adult's.

"It's the way the system works." He scribbles again. "What's your address?"

I give him my address, and he writes it down. He'll send a letter detailing the lawsuit and when the hearing will be to Sara and Brian.

He hasn't asked for any money yet, which is good. His rate's two hundred per hour, and I only have two hundred on me.

I walk out of the office thinking about how Sara and Brian will react when I tell them. Should I even tell them? Anna would avoid it and just wait for the letter to arrive.

Jesse is smoking a cigarette, leaning inside the car with his back to the world. I smell the bleach and let him notice me so he can put the pan away in the back of the car. I walk loudly, and I hear the clattering of him almost spilling the chemicals as he puts it out of sight. His cigarette falls on the concrete, and he steps on it in one fluid motion without a glance. He turns to me, his hair a mess, and I see the lipstick mark on his neck.

I get in the car, ask him how long I took.

"Like an hour, probably," he answers, starting up the car. I hear a clatter come from the back, but I don't smell anything. Well except for the flowery perfume that still lingers in the car. I spot a bunched up black bra on the car floor and wrinkle my nose. "What were you doing in that giant office building anyway?"

"Stuff. What were you doing?"

"Stuff."

Jesse will never tell me the truth about any of his less than moral acts. He thinks of me as a child who has no clue what their older brother is doing. I think it reassures him that I'll never be like him if he doesn't tell me the truth.

The house is louder than normal tonight. Sara doesn't ask me where I went. I doubt she noticed.

"Where did you go? The firehouse dinner is tonight, you know?"

Kate asks me the moment she sees me. She's in our bathroom doing her hair and makeup, and I need to use the toilet. Making a funny face while putting on mascara, she turns away as I go. "And no, you can't use my makeup or wear any of my dresses."

All of her dresses are high cut in the neckline and long in length, them needing to hide the scars she's gained throughout the years. I'm a good four inches taller than her, so anything Kate fits in would probably look short on me.

The firehouse dinner is an annual tradition that we almost always end up skipping because Kate has to go to the hospital for something. Well, once Jesse got caught shoplifting when Sara forgot to bring him, and we had to drive to the police station in our semi formal wear.

Kate and I were in the car with Sara and Brian, but Jesse wasn't. I noticed immediately that I wasn't forced in the middle of the back seat and looked out the window to see Jesse's room above the garage's light still on. I didn't say anything and wondered if Sara or Brian would notice. They didn't, but it was fun to let the notion be considered.

We drove all the way to the restaurant, and made it to the front door before Brian's mobile phone started ringing.

"Hello?"

"Who do you think it is?" Kate had asked me.

I shrugged in response and personally had thought it was Jesse, drunk or high on something.

"What?" Brian closed the phone and said, "We left Jesse, and he just got caught shoplifting. He's at the police station right now."

Sara made up some excuse to the other firefighters. It could've been the truth for all I know. We drove to the station while Kate was wondering out loud about what Jesse stole.

"What could it be?" she had wondered out loud. Neither of her parents answered, and she wouldn't appreciate my thoughts much.

I figured it was the SNES he had wanted for Christmas. He had gotten a skateboard, just like the year before. He gave me the first one he got but didn't want and just hung up the other two in his room, after he spray-painted them of course.

Brian and Kate didn't scold Jesse once they got to the station. They just talked to him in hushed voices and reassured the policemen it wouldn't happen again. Maybe they really thought it wouldn't happen again.

(We all knew it was going to happen again, if not this exact situation.)

"Did they not chew you out?" Kate had asked Jesse. "I mean, you stole that Nintendo."

They're parents were cooking dinner, and I was quietly eating a granola bar. They ignored me in spectacular fashion.

"You guys literally forgot I existed for like an hour. There's no way Mom and Dad will punish me, not seriously anyway."

"Maybe," Kate said, not completely convinced. She never did realize that Sara and Brian would always be too busy with her than to properly deal with Jesse.

Jesse, miraculously, hasn't actually been to a juvenile detention center. Well, he went for one day when he hijacked a car. Then Sara pulled out the pity card with Kate, and they let him out early, I think. Some memories are fuzzy. I think about them so much, the details change in almost imperceptible ways, and even though I don't know what the changes are, I know they're there. Maybe I'm even remembering everything wrong, but what would that say about me, my personality? I wonder, distantly.

"Hey, help me zip this up."

Kate's back is facing me, and I see the scars that criss-cross her back. I have a few of my own, but none as severe as some of hers. The last time she wore a dress was for the hospital dance. She went with some boy who had chocolate everything: chocolate hair, chocolate eyes, chocolate hair, etc. Somehow, that was the only descriptive compliment Kate could come up for him. He had died right before their first official date. Sara had kept it hidden for weeks because she wanted Kate to keep wanting to live, and I had to listen to her rant and cry about it while holding her puke bucket.

I zip up her dress, slightly fumbling at the end before zipping it the entire way. I want to bring up her request, want to confirm if that's what she wants, but I already did that when she first told me.

"It's such a nice day, Anna."

"Hmm?"

I was doing some math homework, and it was nearly sunset. I thought Kate had lost her mind. It wouldn't have surprised me. She was staring at a photo of her and chocolate boy at the dance. She was wearing a headscarf that night, but Sara convinced her to take it off for the photograph. The hospital's dance had tried to mimic what a normal school's would be, but instead of corsages and chocolates, the former of which has dangerous pathogens for immuno-compromised people while the latter would've been partially digested liquid on the floor within ten minutes, they had IV poles and headscarves. Still, the lighting was horrible, and the picture makes Kate and her boyfriend look like demons from he deepest parts of hell.

"I can't do this anymore."

Kate began bawling on her bed, and I started for the door, intending to get Sara, but she grabbed my arm, pulling me down on the bed.

"Kate. What's wrong?" I asked softly. I forced my face to look concerned and on the verge of tears. I hate the feeling of tears in my eyes. "Kate. Does something hurt? Lemme get Mom."

"No," she hiccuped. "I-I heard what M-mom said about, about my kidneys. I know that she's going to a-ask you to give me a kid-kidney." She pulled me closer, so close I could feel her breath on my cheeks. "Don't do it."

I looked at her and said to not be ridiculous. Anna is someone who would never do anything to hurt her sister. Kate wants to live, fight her way through cancer and be normal for once in her life. But that day I acknowledged the possibility that Kate isn't defined by Sara. At least not entirely. Still, I never associated the word suicidal with Kate.

"Kate, if you have a problem, you can always tell Mom."

"I don't have a problem!" She shook me as she said that. I thought she was genuinely disturbed. "It's just, I've done the research. I know the transplant probably wouldn't work anyway, so why bother?"

"Don't you," I forced tears out of my eyes, "don't you want to live?"

"I'm sick of knowing my life has a timer, Anna. I just want it over." Kate's voice cracked.

"Hey, Anna?" Kate spins to face me. "Do you think Jesse will come to the dinner?"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask him?"

Kate shook her head, turning away from me. "Whatever, he can come with us if he wants."

I felt a touch on my arm and see Kate collapse onto the bed. Her chest is still, and I can't move. Taking a deep breath, I scream for Sara.

I hear her drop the keys and start running upstairs. The footsteps pound on the wooden floor, echoing throughout the house. Sara arrives at the door out of breath. She swears and picks Kate up. She doesn't glance at me as she screams for Brian to start the car. She starts performing CPR, and I slip out of the bedroom.

I hear heavy metal music blasting through the thin walls of Jesse's room. I prepare myself to start crying. I well up my eyes, and the tears stream down my face as I open his door and start yelling about Kate.

Clatters reverberate through the air as Jesse scrambles to his feet, his headphones dangling in the air, still half attached to his laptop while his keyboard is on the floor, a few stray keys detached. His hearing would be horrible if he was listening to music that loudly except I also see the used tissue in the trash bin along with the unzipped fly. I crinkle my nose unconsciously, then immediately stop. Anna wouldn't have noticed such a thing, though it's not like the guys at school are subtle about it.

Jesse runs past me towards Kate and Sara. They're all going to the hospital, and we'll be missing the firehouse dinner again.

The car drives off to the hospital. We live five minutes from it, and it's actually faster to just drive there than to call 911, the landlines are horrible here for some reason.

The phone starts ringing. I let it go to voicemail. I hear an automated voice tell me about a large withdrawal from the Fitzgerald's checking account. I wonder how much money they've spent taking care of Kate. I've seen the bills piled up on the kitchen table. Stacks upon stacks with sighs in the air next to them.

 **AN: This is my first long form story that I actually intend to try to finish. These updates will definitely take at least a month or two, but it could go faster if I had a beta reader, though the beta system on the site is absolutely horrible. I, of course, appreciate reviews and constructive criticism.**


	2. Kate

I hate my life with burning intensity. Like every sixteen year old, I know. But I like to think my hate is special.

I don't particularly hate any person in my life. My family is, well they're fine for the most part. I used to have friends, but every time they spoke a word, their sincerity was always in doubt because who acts normal with a cancer kid. I don't hate them, though.

My hate is directed towards my life, and why I hate it is because my body is trying to kill me. Every cancer PSA is either trying to get you to give money to foundations that give less than they lead you to believe or it's trying to portray us cancer kids as the same as everyone else.

That's bullshit, but it's always nice to imagine.

I hate how I have scars that somehow cross over my entire body like ropes. I don't know how I got half of them. They just keep appearing. With every dialysis another one appears in a place randomly. The doctors say bruising is normal except I never bruise. I scar. I know they're worried about the scarring. I asked one of my nurses about it once only to be greeted with an ostensibly reassuring pat on the head. It ended up feeling like I was being treated like a toddler who was still scared of needles. You can't be scared of needles when you've had them stuck in you in every nook and cranny your body has, most unknown to even you.

That's another thing I hate. Being treated like I'm not sixteen years old but instead like I'm six. I've had my chart say I was six once. If you were curious, I was twelve at the time and experiencing my third relapse. At that point, I was falling, but I still remember they sent that saccharine nurse to my bedside with a lollipop and sweet whispers only to be slapped by an irritable seventh grader. At least, I would've been a seventh grader if I went to school.

School is a foreign country where I can't even begin to comprehend the language. The girls are more vain than me, the boys more fake than margarine with the teachers giving up on those who can't keep up while illusioning the superintendent by slowing down the pace of the class to an insufferable crawl. It only makes the smart kids hate you with a burning passion since you're somehow in the highest class despite having only four years of actual schooling.

The movies make it out like high school is a rumor mill, but nobody dares to crack a joke about any illness with a cancer kid right next to them. No whispers trail me in shame; no one speaks to me for fear of offense. I wish someone would call me a bitch or a fag or something to be honest. That kid would probably be expelled though.

The teachers all treat me like I'm an antique china doll. I don't have to do homework or take tests. I'll always pass. I don't say anything during class. I like eyeing the other kids instead. There's this one cute girl, Delilah, who works furiously. She's four foot four precisely. That's a beautiful height. A boy sits next to me with the most splendid eyes. A dark chartreuse while his lashes curl like a ribbon's. It's not just his eyes. His mouth also has this habit of puckering like a child's when he's lying. His cheeks have a cinnamon tint to it while the rest of his skin is a pale, dusty color. I love his face, and I also notice how his wonderful eyes turn to a blueberry mash once he spots Delilah.

I love faces in general. The curve of the nose, the blunt plateau of the brow; whenever I meet someone, I'll stare at it before even glancing in any other direction.

The teacher's faces let me predict which ones would let me skip class and which ones would try and make me pay attention. Mrs. Golder is this thirty something psychology teacher who pretends she 'gets' us teenagers. Her face is sharply swooped with no room between her upper lip and the blunt hook of her nose. Still, she paints her face with a foundation that's just a touch too dark.

"Now, Kate, do you know the answer?"

Everyone's head swivels my way. Twenty two pairs of eyes look at me expectantly. I open my mouth only for nothing to come out. I hear a whisper, then a slap.

"She's got cancer, dude!"

"She's incompetent, though. Why is she in this class?"

They're not wrong. Mrs. Golder tries, vainly, to silence them. Then she raises her voice, gives me an apologetic look, and tells the class the answer herself. Something about baby monkeys.

The school day ends on Mrs. Golder saying how I need to listen in her class.

I remember when Anna was born. My first memory was the day after it. I just had the cord blood pumped into me, and was recovering in the hospital bed. Mom brought her over to me in her own hospital gown. She had specially requested it match mine. Anna screamed when I looked at her face, but looking at the ugly cries made me happy in some subconscious way. Someone else was suffering alongside me, though in retrospect, the thought was unfair to Mom. She seemed to take my suffering personally. She still does.

Anna never cried once we brought her home. We were in the hospital for another day, and we came home to an exhausted house. Floorboards creaked, faucets leaked out drips of water, and Dad was at the center of it all with a relieved smile.

We were like a perfect family.

Jesse wasn't there. Dad was home to watch over him. He was four and was already starting to carve out our parents' image of him. Isn't it funny how we somehow formed a complete picture while missing a part of the puzzle. We were a perfect family without a piece of reality. But Jesse was always the one that madd trouble. I don't think he liked it, but he did it. There was no spot for him in the board, so he threw his head back and made his own island. Perseverance had never been his forte. I respect his irreverence with calculated distance.

The hospital has become an integral part of my life. I'm in it for ten hours every week for my dialysis. Hooking me up to the machine makes me feel like crap; the actual process isn't much better. But I am asleep for most of it. I can't do much else.

I always feel anemic while my blood gets clean, and my nurses don't help. They're different every time, and most never bother to learn my name. I don't blame them, but; actually, yes, I blame them for it. They chose this caretaker profession, so they better do it well.

Fuck them, am I right?

I can be bitter. I love the catharsis in the simple act of feeling spite. I hate the aftermath of guilt. Mom has this way of looking at you and reading your mind: be a good child, Kate. You are the good one.

Jesse is off in his own personal hell with his endless visits to his girlfriend while still somehow spending most of his day in the house, holed up in his hovel of a room. Not that I would ever say that aloud. Mom would look at me and shake her head while muttering some excuse for Jesse. She only does it because she knows it's her and Dad's fault he's like that. They forget about him so often.

Anna's a mile away from everyone off in her own, no doubt monologuing about the travesties of character. Her face is always neutral while the dip in her brow is almost nonexistent. Her face is almost perfect with how wonderfully it embodies everything and nothing at the same moment.

She'll absentmindedly write something down on a piece of loose paper without ever noticing. She writes more words than she says. I have a binder full of all those scribblings. I'll give them to her once I leave for college. I thought that at the time I started. I'm not making it to college, but the habit sticks. Opening it up, one would see the way Anna called Mom and Dad "Sara" and "Brian". I'll never bring it up, knowing my inability to speak my mind, but I always have it stored in the back of my mind when Anna speaks with that condescending inflection that sneaks its way into everything she says. I sound like her, don't I?

"I need to watch my show. Sorry, Anna."

I said that to her when we were younger. I had disinterested in everyone around me then. Certain I was going to die so what did it matter. Anna was going to a hockey game, and Mom had asked me whether or not I was going. Jake was going to propose to Kelly that night. I don't even remember what show it was that had caught my attention. It had been so long.

Anna quit hockey after that tournament, and I didn't find out until Jesse told me a year after it had happened.

She still keeps all of her equipment under her bed. It keeps her old dolls company.

Dad has this way of bottling everything up until he starts venting in front of the bathroom mirror when he thinks everyone is asleep. He does it quietly as to not wake anyone, but he does it at least once a week. He'll stand there and soliloquy about his work, about everything.

"Today Marty got a call for a cat in a tree, and the woman was a sweet old lady. She told us all about how her cat had just had kittens. She let Darryl adopt a little grey one. He named it Misty and gave her to his niece.

We had a call for a fire in an entire neighborhood. We thought it was abandoned, and we didn't hear anyone, so we never bothered to look inside. We had another call on the line and couldn't afford to spend too much time on this one. I hosed the fire out, and we sped off, leaving Eileen and Rob to clean it up a little. But Eileen found a burnt body. It was a little baby. Even though the little tufts on his head were charred, it looked a lot like how Anna looked when she was a baby. She had that stoic silence. She never cried, and we thought she was a stillborn for a moment when she didn't squabble once outside.

Sara doesn't listen to me much. She thinks she knows best for everyone. But sometimes, I feel like she just tunnel visions everyone out. I don't know what she's thinking anymore. I can only guess."

He sighs and looks at his reflection in the eye. He doesn't see me right behind him, a wisp of a shadow just barely visible in the dark of the parlor.

Dad turns away from the mirror, flicks the light switch, and goes back upstairs to where Mom is.

The next day, it's just like any other. Still, we're not much a well-oiled machine, more like a cobra ready to strike at any notice. I'm the prey in the metaphor. I'm pretty bad at metaphors.

"Pass me the cereal."

Dad passes it to me and goes back to reading through the mail.

"Where's Jesse?"

Dad looks up at my question for a moment. He has a surprised look on his face. He knows I never talk to Jesse. I can almost see his question of why I care about Jesse. The answer feels distant or us but is obvious in retrospect.

"Off at Edith's home."

Mom puts down a plate of eggs for herself and Anna. Her eyes are always fatigued with black lacing her eyes. She never has very good sleep. Dad will talk about that sometimes, while speaking to the mirror.

"Can you please pass me the cereal, Kate?"

Anna takes the cereal without an answer from me.

"Thank you."

"Your welcome."

We don't make eye contact during the entire exchange.

We eat in silence. There's nothing to talk about with each other. Mom only wants to talk about me, but that makes her feel guilty about leaving Anna out. Dad just wants everything to be normal, but he doesn't get that normal will never happen, not with us. Anna doesn't want to talk. Jesse isn't even here. And I can't help but think that this is all my fault.


End file.
